Obsidian Alternative

Looking for an Obsidian alternative for your AI agents? Meet AgentsRoom.

Obsidian is a superb personal knowledge base: local Markdown, a graph view, and one of the best plugin ecosystems in software. It was built for a human to write in. AgentsRoom Project Memory was built for the other case: a project knowledge base your AI coding agents write and read themselves, while they work.

Both give you linked Markdown notes and a knowledge graph. The difference is who writes them, where they live, and what it costs to share them. In Obsidian you capture knowledge by hand in a separate app, and sharing a vault means an Obsidian Sync seat for every collaborator. In AgentsRoom the agents write the notes through MCP tools as part of doing the work, the memory sits in the IDE where those agents run, and it is shared with everyone on the project at no extra cost.

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Graph view[[wiki-links]]
architecturedecisionspitfalls
Recently updatedGoing staleWiki-link

The difference at a glance

Obsidian as agent memory

  • -You write the notes. Knowledge only lands in the vault if a human stops and types it up.
  • -It lives in a separate app, next to your IDE rather than inside it.
  • -No official AI features and no official MCP server: agent access goes through the CLI or community plugins you wire up yourself.
  • -Sharing a vault needs Obsidian Sync, with an active subscription for every collaborator and a cap of 20.
  • -No live collaborative editing: Obsidian's own docs list multiplayer as planned, not shipped.
  • -Built for personal knowledge management, so nothing is scoped to a repository or a codebase by default.

AgentsRoom Project Memory

  • +Your agents write the notes themselves, through the memory_save MCP tool, with no confirmation step.
  • +The memory lives in the IDE where the agents run, one click from the terminal they work in.
  • +Three native MCP tools ship with it: memory_list, memory_get, memory_save. Nothing to assemble.
  • +Shared with everyone who opens the project, included, with no per-seat memory subscription.
  • +Keyed to the project id in the repo, so a teammate who clones inherits the memory with no invite or import.
  • +Five canonical folders built for code: architecture, decisions, conventions, pitfalls, features.

Feature-by-feature comparison

How AgentsRoom Project Memory and Obsidian compare on the job of holding knowledge your AI coding agents actually use. Obsidian wins several rows on purpose: it is a far broader product.

FeatureAgentsRoomObsidian
Notes written by AI agents automatically✓✗
Native MCP tools for agents✓✗
Lives inside the coding IDE✓✗
Shared with the whole project✓✓ (partial)
Cost to share knowledgeIncluded$4-8/user/mo
Collaborator limitUnlimited20
Knowledge graph view✓✓
[[wiki-link]] notes✓✓
Folder structure built for codebases✓✗
Plain Markdown files on your disk✗✓
Full offline use✓ (partial)✓
Mobile apps✗✓
Plugin ecosystem✗✓
General note-taking beyond code✗✓
PriceFreeFree app
AgentsRoom: your agents, your projects, and the memory they build, in one window
AgentsRoom: your agents, your projects, and the memory they build, in one window

See AgentsRoom in action

How AgentsRoom runs your coding agents, and where the memory they write lives.

AgentsRoom desktop app: projects, parallel AI agents, terminals and backlog in one interface

Interactive demo is desktop only

The live demo runs the full desktop app and needs a larger screen. On mobile, explore every feature in short videos instead.

Watch features in video

When Obsidian is the better choice

Honestly: often. Obsidian and AgentsRoom Project Memory overlap on one narrow job, and Obsidian is the stronger product almost everywhere outside it.

You want a second brain, not just project memory

Obsidian is built for personal knowledge management: research, writing, study notes, daily notes, life admin. Project Memory only holds knowledge about a software project, written by agents working on it. If you want one place for everything you think about, that is Obsidian, and AgentsRoom is not trying to replace it.

You want plain files you fully own, offline

An Obsidian vault is a folder of Markdown on your disk, readable with any editor, with no account required and no server involved. AgentsRoom stores Project Memory server-side so it can be shared across a project's users, keeping a local cache for the UI. If local-first ownership and complete offline use are the priority, Obsidian's model is the one you want.

You want the ecosystem

Nearly 6,000 community plugins, hundreds of themes, Canvas, Bases for database-style views, Publish for putting a vault online, and mature mobile apps. Project Memory is deliberately one focused feature: notes, folders, search and a graph. There is no plugin API and no mobile app for it.

Using both takes 30 seconds

You do not have to pick. Most people keep Obsidian for their own notes and let AgentsRoom hold the project's.

01

Keep your vault

Nothing to export, nothing to migrate. Obsidian stays exactly where it is for your personal notes and everything outside the codebase.

02

Open your project in AgentsRoom

Drag the project folder in. The memory starts empty, with no structure to set up: folders are created the first time an agent writes to them.

03

Let the agents fill it

Work normally. The first decision, the first pitfall, the first module properly understood gets written down, and the next session starts from it.

AgentsRoom Project Memory

Obsidian is one of several ways to give your agents a memory. The wider landscape includes CLAUDE.md files, mem0, Letta, Zep and basic-memory, each with a different trade-off.

Compare AI agent memory tools

Frequently asked questions

What is Obsidian?+
Obsidian (obsidian.md) is a note-taking app built by Dynalist Inc. around a local folder of plain Markdown files called a vault. It is free to use, needs no account, and is known for its graph view, its [[wiki-link]] style connections between notes, and a very large community plugin ecosystem with nearly 6,000 plugins and hundreds of themes. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. It is widely used for personal knowledge management, zettelkasten and second-brain workflows.
Is AgentsRoom an Obsidian alternative?+
For one specific job, yes: holding the knowledge about a codebase that AI coding agents need to read and write. AgentsRoom Project Memory gives you linked Markdown notes, folders and a knowledge graph, but the agents write and read them through MCP tools while they work, and the memory is shared with everyone on the project. For general personal knowledge management, Obsidian is the far broader tool and AgentsRoom is not a replacement for it. Many developers use both.
Can I use Obsidian as memory for Claude Code or other AI agents?+
Yes, with some assembly. Obsidian ships an official CLI, released in early 2026, whose own documentation describes giving agentic tools the ability to interact with your vault, and there are well-established community routes: the Local REST API plugin now includes a built-in MCP server, and several third-party Obsidian MCP servers exist. Obsidian's CEO also publishes a set of Agent Skills for working with Obsidian formats. What Obsidian does not ship is an official MCP server or any built-in AI feature, so this path means choosing and maintaining community components yourself. In AgentsRoom the memory tools are built in and there is nothing to wire up.
How much does Obsidian cost compared to AgentsRoom?+
The Obsidian app itself is free, including for work: the commercial license became optional in February 2025 and is now a way to support the project rather than a requirement. Costs appear when you sync or share: Obsidian Sync is 4 dollars per user per month billed annually for the Standard tier and 8 dollars for Plus, and Obsidian Publish is 8 dollars per site per month. AgentsRoom Project Memory is included at no extra cost, has no note limit, and needs no separate sync subscription, because sharing across a project's users is how it works by default. AgentsRoom itself has a free tier and a paid plan for unlimited projects.
Does Obsidian support real-time collaboration on a shared vault?+
Not natively. Obsidian's documentation states that it does not yet support collaborative live editing on the same file, and multiplayer editing is listed as planned on the official roadmap. Shared vaults are a Sync feature: every collaborator needs an active Sync subscription, the cap is 20 collaborators, all collaborators get the same permissions, and edits appear once sync completes rather than live. Community plugins such as Relay add real multiplayer editing on top. AgentsRoom Project Memory does not offer live co-editing either, but sharing itself is included and uncapped: everyone who opens the project reads and writes the same memory.
Does AgentsRoom store my notes as Markdown files on disk like an Obsidian vault?+
Not in the same way. Note bodies are Markdown, and the desktop app keeps a local cache file inside the project folder, but the source of truth is stored server-side so the memory can be shared between everyone working on the project. That is the trade: you get automatic project-wide sharing with no per-seat subscription, and you give up the pure local-first vault model. If having every note as a file you own on disk matters more than sharing, Obsidian is the better fit.
Can I use AgentsRoom and Obsidian together?+
Yes, and it is the most common setup. They cover different halves of the problem. Obsidian holds what you think: research, personal notes, drafts, everything outside a specific codebase. AgentsRoom Project Memory holds what your agents learn about a given project: decisions, architecture, pitfalls, conventions, feature state. Neither needs to know about the other, and nothing has to be migrated between them.
What are the best Obsidian alternatives for teams and for AI agents?+
It depends which part of Obsidian you are replacing. For general note-taking with real multi-user collaboration, Notion and Logseq are the usual comparisons, and plugins like Relay add multiplayer editing to Obsidian itself. For memory that AI coding agents read and write, the landscape is different: managed memory layers such as mem0, Letta and Zep, local MCP servers over Markdown such as basic-memory, and plain conventions like CLAUDE.md and AGENTS.md. AgentsRoom is the option that puts that memory inside the IDE the agents already run in, shares it across the project by default, and exposes it through built-in MCP tools rather than components you assemble.
Does Obsidian have a knowledge graph like AgentsRoom?+
Yes, and it is more configurable. Obsidian's graph view offers a global and a local graph, filters, color groups, adjustable forces, link arrows and a time-lapse animation. The AgentsRoom memory graph is simpler and tuned for one purpose: notes cluster by folder, [[wiki-links]] between notes form the edges, and node size and brightness track how recently a note was updated, so knowledge going stale visibly fades on a sixty-day horizon. Clicking a node opens the note.

Give your agents a memory

Download AgentsRoom and let your agents start writing down what they learn. Free, no note limit.

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A glimpse of AgentsRoom in action.

Multiple projects
Multi-provider
Multiple agents
Live status
File diff & commit
Mobile companion
Live preview
Agent teams
Browser automation
Backlog-driven dev
Prompt Library
Skills Library
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